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We are all Mexicans

THE DEPARTMENT OF Homeland Security is building 12.5 miles of secondary border wall as part of President Donald Trump’s Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements Executive Order to build new fencing along the Southern Border. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)

Social media enthusiasts have been having a field day since Fox News’ embarrassing mistake last Sunday, when President Trump’s public relations network made even more explicit their ignorance by broadcasting a graphic that referred to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as “Mexican countries.”

The ridiculous graphic had to do with Trump’s decision to punish those three countries for, according to him, not doing enough to control the influx of their citizens who arrive at the southern border seeking asylum. Yet you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that such measure will only accelerate the exodus of Central American families fleeing the violence and abject poverty in their countries. The president’s ignorance is unfathomable.

“Trump cuts U.S. Aid to 3 Mexican Countries,” read the stupid graphic displayed during “Fox & Friends,” the network’s morning show. The viewers’ reactions were swift and far from kind.

“Can’t help but feel a little disappointed...it was great to spend Spring Break with my family, but we only got to see 1 of the 3 Mexican Nations,” read one tweet.

“I woke up this morning thinking there was only 1 Mexican country. Thanks @FoxNews for the education,” said another.

These are only two of the myriad jokes that mixed disbelief, mockery and pure joy. Yet, other social media users took a more serious tone: “That IS how they see us @FoxNews,” said still another tweet.

This, of course, is the real problem. Fox News sees us like this and so do their bosses of the Trump administration, arrogant in their bottomless ignorance and contempt for other nations, immigrants, women and people of color. Despicable.

With the National Guard, drones, troops, the border patrol displayed at the Mexican border it would seem the U.S. is about to wage one more war. Yet, absurdly this war is against a legion of frightened people — children and families — from Central America seeking to protect the most fundamental of all human rights — their right to live.

Were it not for the president being a white supremacist, it would be hard to believe that all this hysterical beating of the drums is geared to stop thousands of poor vulnerable people who are fleeing murderous drug cartels and runaway gang violence from finding protection in the richest country in the world.

That the U.S., by financing devastating armed conflicts during the Cold War and supporting illegitimate and criminal governments has a huge historical responsibility in creating the conditions Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala find themselves in that are making people flee, doesn't seem to matter.

Trump and his minions can say what they will but this and, of course, the infamous border wall, is not about border security. This is about using the lives of children, women and men as pawns in a shameful electoral game, a ploy to placate the racist feelings of Trump’s base of despicables, no matter the tragic consequences.

Not that a lawless president like Trump cares, but these are not “illegal immigrants.” They are persecuted people whose lives are in danger and deserve all the protections and guarantees afforded by national and international laws to refugees and asylum seekers.

Please, stop talking about human rights as long as children are kept in cages and families under bridges, and as long as Washington blames the victims for conditions mostly created by imperial and cruel U.S. policies. The hypocrisy is sickening.